Denver is set to be the big winner if completion of RTD’s FasTracks transit expansion is delayed for years or even decades.

The Regional Transportation District’s recent decision to spend much of the remaining $305 million in the current budget on initial legs of largely unfunded FasTracks projects means all major rail stations that were to be built within Denver’s boundaries will be constructed by 2016.

In contrast, construction of about 20 stations and the track that will serve them in Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Boulder and Jefferson counties could be delayed for up to several decades unless metro Denver voters approve a FasTracks tax increase.

RTD’s board of directors gave itself until May 3 to decide whether to ask voters to support a tax increase this year. A recent poll suggests such a ballot measure is not winnable in 2011 because of the electorate’s anti-tax mood.

There is enough money from the 0.4 percent FasTracks tax passed in 2004 and other sources to build a little more than half the FasTracks program, which now carries a total price tag of $6.7 billion.

Construction of the $710 million West Corridor light-rail line from downtown Denver to Lakewood and Golden is about 70 percent complete and it is due to open in two years.

Major construction on the $1.1 billion East Corridor commuter train from Union Station to Denver International Airport is scheduled to begin by the end of this year.

Five of the DIA route’s currently planned seven stations are in Denver and the remaining two, one at Peoria Street and Smith Road and one set for 40th Avenue and Airport Road, are in Aurora, but within a stone’s throw from Denver city limits in each case.

Station location matters because cities are banking on commercial and residential development to crop up around the rail platforms and help bolster the municipal tax base.

RTD expects to break ground on the Gold Line train route from Union Station to Arvada and Wheat Ridge this summer after the transit agency receives a $1 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration.

Federal funds on the line

The federal grant is targeted for the DIA and Gold Line rail projects, and RTD expects to get notice of the FTA award in June.

The DIA and Gold Line trains, and a few other FasTracks elements, will be built by a public-private partnership, or PPP, that RTD selected to help finance, design, construct, operate and maintain a large component of the transit expansion.

Once it secures the FTA money, RTD will launch a number of smaller FasTracks projects using $305 million that it identified as extra construction money when the bid from the PPP consortium came in low.

One such small project involves initially building, for $90 million, a stub of the North Metro commuter-rail line from Union Station only as far as its first station near the National Western Stock Show complex in Denver.

“That’s as far as we can get with the $90 million,” said RTD planning chief Bill Van Meter.

The entire North Metro line is planned to run a total of 18 miles from Denver through Commerce City, Northglenn and Thornton to an end-of-line station at 162nd Avenue near Adams County’s border with Weld County.

The full price tag for the North Metro line is about $866 million and it, along with the Northwest train line to Boulder/Longmont and the Interstate 225 light-rail line in Aurora, are the three major elements that have been left largely unfunded by RTD’s FasTracks financial crisis.

RTD officials say using a portion of the $305 million to build a stub of the North Metro line, and a similar short segment of the I-225 rail line from Parker Road to East Iliff Avenue — also for $90 million — will help those projects lure other sources of money, including possibly more federal grants, so they can be completed.

In the meantime, building the North Metro line as far as the National Western complex is likely to help Denver boost redevelopment in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Development around the remaining seven stations planned for the North Metro rail line — all in Adams County — will likely have to wait until RTD secures more money to finish the train line.

And if there is no tax increase, that could be years away.

Adams County has long had a fickle relationship with FasTracks. It was the only county in the metro area in which a majority of voters did not support the 2004 FasTracks ballot measure.

The recent poll commissioned by the pro-FasTracks group Coalition for Smart Transit found only 19 percent of Adams County voters would support a proposal to increase RTD’s FasTracks sales tax by 0.4 percentage points — essentially doubling the existing tax. Fully 80 percent of Adams respondents opposed such a tax increase, according to the poll.

In contrast, the poll found that 53 percent of Boulder County voters surveyed would back the measure, 52 percent in Denver would vote yes and 45 percent in Arapahoe County would support it.

Plans to track Westminster

In addition to building the DIA and Gold Line trains, the PPP also plans to construct a 5.8-mile stub of the Northwest train line from Union Station to West 71st Avenue and Lowell Boulevard in Westminster.

This segment of the Northwest rail line will share with the Gold Line a commuter-rail station at 41st Avenue and Fox Street in Denver that also is expected to attract some nearby commercial development.

The two train lines similarly will share a rail station near Pecos Street and West 57th Avenue in Adams County. Just north of the Pecos station, the two train lines diverge.

To finish the Northwest line north of 71st Avenue, including construction of six additional stations in Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder and Longmont, will cost RTD about $796 million and the agency likely will need the tax increase to help cover that expense.

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